The Kate's story behind October’s fun paper mushroom tutorial

Happy October! I’ve been daydreaming about this month’s tutorial all year. Mushrooms have a special place in my heart, and I’ve been dying to create one for The Posey Box. They’re a bold and fun departure from our usual paper flowers!

Usually, when Quynh and I are planning a tutorial, we’ll choose a flower and then a specific variety and color of that flower to recreate in crepe paper. But for this month’s project, I really wanted to design a paper mushroom around my favorite mushroom attributes. I wanted to make a variety with chunky and very realistic gills, dramatically shaped caps, and the ability to actually glow. The world of mushrooms is so huge that this exact mushroom might be growing in a forest somewhere as we speak, but the truth is that Quynh and I invented this species just for our members. 

 Hopefully any mycologists out there will be forgiving once they make one of these fun mushrooms. We hope you have a blast with it and craft yourself a whole mantel-full of fungi. And if you feel inspired, try adapting the pattern to create your own variety!

Some things to keep in mind:

 Make sure you let your cap dry thoroughly between layers.

• I find it a lot easier to cut several layers of gills at the same time and then glue them directly onto the gill holder, rather than cutting all of my gills at the beginning. This is because it’s easier to keep them all together if you don’t have to set them down first.
• To add some variety to your fungi, try using multiple weights of paper to build the cap. You can go bold or delicate with mushrooms. There are so many options!

Remember, if you have questions about the tutorial, you can join us at The Gathering on October 7th at 4 pm PST / 7 pm EST. We can’t wait to see your crepe paper mushrooms!